I like having standards that guide my instruction. My focus is on teaching my students. Determining what to teach would be a whole other job! I took Classroom Assessment (624) this summer and it spoke a great deal on the Backward Design of curriculum. It stated that one of the negative aspects of standards is what we've all agreed upon--there is unrealistically too much to teach. James Popham stated that national standards are developed by professionals in their fields, not by classroom teachers. Those that work for the National Council of Mathmatics think that everything mathmatical is important so too many standards are set for each subject because they all think their particular discipline is the most important. I'm not quite sure who develops state standards although one would hope that they have at one time been classroom teachers who have just turned their focus onto curriculum instead of instruction. And with high stakes testing, you can be sure that if the tests are based on national standards, I'm going to teach those standards.
The standards play a key role in the Backward Design. The standards tell us what the students need to know or be able to do so if we design our assessment to make sure that it assesses if they know or can do what the standard states, then we can design our instruction to meet those goals. We have the freedom to decide how to teach and that's so important. We have to be able to adjust our instruction to meet the needs of our students. Sometimes I'm disappointed that I don't get to spend as much time on a concept as I would like but it is in the best interests of my students that I reach as many standards as I can, not spend a month teaching what I want just because it interests me or my students. I could go so much more in depth about life and space science because they're so interesting but then I won't have the time to teach physical science. That happened to me last year. I used to look over the assessment a couple days before the test (after instruction had already started) to make sure I had hit everything but it really does make much more sense to look at the assessment first to make sure it really assesses the standard or I can develop my own. Then I can make sure the activities I use will help them to succeed on the assessment. Sometimes that invloves a textbook or my Smartboard, manipulatives, direct instruction, group work or individual work but that's all up to me and I love having that freedom. The best part of my master's program so far is learning new instructional techniques that I can use to meet those standards.